English painter and printmaker, Caufield began his studies in 1956 at Chelsea School of Art, continuing at the Royal College of Art. In the early 1960s his paintings were characterised by flat images of objects paired with angular geometric devices or isolated against unmodulated areas of colour. He adopted a sign-painters’ technique, no visible brushwork, using basic black outlines to present ordinary images as emblems of a mysterious reality. Gradually Caulfield’s attention shifted to more architectural elements, inserting highly detailed passages in the manner of Photorealism into his more simple style compositions. During the 1980s he returned to a more stripped down aesthetic. In 1987 he was nominated for the Turner Prize and in 1996 awarded a CBE.